A builder who has spent two decades at the frontier of platform technology — from vending networks in the United States to AI on India's first quantum computer — and who is now directing that accumulated capability toward a single conviction: that India's 63 million MSMEs are the engine of a top-three global economy, and that they deserve the financial infrastructure to prove it.
India's GDP trajectory to the third-largest economy in the world is well understood. What is less discussed is whether that growth will be distributed — whether India's 63 million MSMEs, which produce 30% of GDP and 48% of exports, will rise with it or be left behind.
The bet is that they will rise — but only if they get access to the financial infrastructure they deserve. Not charity. Not subsidised credit. Real, sophisticated, operationally-grounded working capital — the same quality that Chinese MSMEs access through Ant Group and MYbank, that German Mittelstand access through their relationship banks, and that American small businesses access through embedded fintech platforms.
India's MSMEs can compete on product quality, on cost, and on scale. The one gap is financing sophistication. That gap is closable — and India's own Digital Public Infrastructure makes it more closable here than anywhere else in the world.
Across two continents, across sectors — the common thread is building platform technology that changes how an industry operates at scale. Not incrementally. Structurally.
Aadhaar, UPI, Jan Dhan — those three Digital Public Infrastructures together moved hundreds of millions into the formal financial economy faster than any nation in history. India did not just close a gap; it created a new global template.
The current wave — OCEN, ONDC, IBDIC InvoiceHub, Account Aggregator — is the supply chain and trade finance layer. It is less visible than UPI, but its structural potential for MSME credit is orders of magnitude larger.
India should not merely participate in the global financial technology conversation. India should lead it. The DPI stack is already better than anything the US, EU, or China has built in terms of openness and interoperability. What it needs now is the platform layer that makes it real for the MSME on the ground.
"India built Aadhaar and gave the world a new model for digital identity. India built UPI and gave the world a new model for real-time payments. India will build the world's most sophisticated MSME supply chain finance infrastructure — and the 63 million MSMEs that power this country will be the ones who benefit most."